Rolls-Royce Eyes Autonomous Ships

Rolls-Royce hopes to make a splash in the commercial shipping industry with autonomous crafts.

"This is happening. It's not if, it's when," Oskar Levander, Rolls-Royce vice president of innovation for marine, said during a recent symposium in Amsterdam. "The technologies needed to make remote and autonomous ships a reality exist."

The challenge, however, is finding a way to combine them reliably and cost-effectively.

Unmanned ships—sans crew accommodations and the deckhouse—could save money, weight, and space, making way for more cargo and improving reliability and productivity, the AAWA said in a recent white paper.

"The increased level of safety onboard will be provided by additional systems," Rolls-Royce said on its website. "Our future solutions will reduce need for human-machine interaction by automating selected tasks and processes, whilst keeping the human at the center of critical decision making and onboard expertise.

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About Stephanie Mlot

Stephanie joined PCMag in May 2012, moving to New York City from Frederick, Md., where she worked for four years as a multimedia reporter at the second-largest daily newspaper in Maryland. She has also written about technology, science, culture, and Doctor Who for PCMag sister site Geek.com. She is based in Edinburgh, Scotland.

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